Really? I didn't know that, at least on a widespread level, anyway. That's interesting, but not surprising. Bird was another who played with a definite chip on his shoulder, and for good reason.
Really? He was notorious, for both trash talking other players he was going against, and for trash talking fans at other stadiums.
Some humorous examples
In the finals against the Rockets (coached by Bill Fitch who was Bird's first NBA coach but had a prickily relationship with the players) Bird hits a big three pointer right in front of the rockets bench, turns to Fitch and says "You can't ****ing cover me" and continues down the court.
"You should have gone for 60” Bird telling McHale after he got 56 to set the franchise record. Then dropping 60 a week later.
Bird telling the guy in Milwaukee who taunted him that the Celts would be back for a game seven after losing game 5. The guy says “See you on Saturday(Game 7).” Bird “ You have a better chance of seeing God”
At the All Star game: “Larry walks in and says I hope all you guys in here are thinking about second place, because I’m winning this…" Then he does without even removing his warmup jacket.
Clyde Drexler from playing him his rookie year:
“I was guarding him my rookie year, he looked at me and he goes “you can’t stop me”…I looked at him and said “gosh, boy you’re so confident”. He goes “Confident? You’re a rookie, you don’t know anything!”
“He proceeded to score 10 straight points on me, coach took me out the game, he walks by and he’s laughing at me.”
Mark (Aguirre) hit a three pointer on Larry Bird and said ‘take a look at that’. Bird just came right back and hit three three pointers in a row, and said to him “You’re out of your league”.
Late in a tied game against the Seattle SuperSonics, Bird told Supersonics forward Xavier McDaniel, who was guarding him, “I’m going to get it [the ball] right here and I am going to shoot it right in your face.” As McDaniel remembers it, he responded by saying, “I know, I’ll be waiting.” After a timeout, Bird made two baseline cuts, then posted in the exact spot he had indicated to McDaniel, paused, turned, and made it in his face. He finished up the sequence by telling McDaniel, “I didn’t mean to leave two seconds on the clock.”
Reggie Miller recalled his encounter with Larry Bird’s legendary trash talking ability in his book “I Love Being The Enemy”. Reggie tried to disrupt Larry’s concentration when he was shooting free throws late in a game. Larry glared at him, made the first free throw and said, “Rook, I am the best ****ing shooter in the league. In the league, understand? And you’re up here trying to ****ing tell me something?” Then Larry buried the second free throw.
During one game on Christmas Day against the Indiana Pacers, before the game Bird told Chuck Person that he had a Christmas present waiting for him.
During the game, when Person was on the bench, Bird shot a three-pointer on the baseline right in front of Person. Immediately after releasing the ball, Bird said to Person, “Merry f**king Christmas!”, and then the shot went in. This was no doubt inspired by Person (nicknamed the “Rifleman”) stating prior to the game that “The Rifleman is Coming, and He’s Going Bird Hunting.”
Dennis Rodman: “I would be all over him, trying to deny him the ball, and all Larry was doing was yelling at his teammates, I’m open! Hurry up before they notice nobody is guarding me!” then he would stick an elbow in my jaw and stick the jumper in my face, then he would start in on my coach “Coach you better get this guy out and send in somebody who’s going to D me up, because its too easy when I’m wide open like this”
“I started talking a little trash to him,” Horace Grant recalled, when the Celtics were the defending champions. “I’m saying, ‘You’re not going to score. You’re not getting this basket. I remember him then telling me exactly what he was going to do to me. He says he’s going to fake me left and then he’s going to shoot a right-hand hook over me. And then he goes and does it and scores.”
On a West Coast trip in 1986, Bird told the entire Dallas Mavericks bench that after the time out, Ainge would inbounds the pass to DJ, who would hit Bird in the corner where Bird would step back and take a three. “So you got that?” Bird queried the bench. “I’m gonna stand right here. I’m not going to move. They’ll pass me the ball, and the next sound you here will be the ball hitting the bottom of the net.” And that’s exactly what happened. Bird winked at the Maverick before heading back down to the other end of the court.
Sorry, I got carried away. Bird was the best.
